


Nightwalker

by trustingHim17



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-14
Updated: 2020-10-18
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:08:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26999446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trustingHim17/pseuds/trustingHim17
Summary: In which Holmes refuses to believe he is a nightwalker, and Watson is amused. Not crack. Not AU
Comments: 3
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

The noise woke me.

Footsteps carried from the sitting room, and I rolled over, frowning. My watch said Holmes had gone to bed less than three hours ago, and he had been tired enough from the many recent cases to fall asleep quickly. Why was he in the sitting room?

I carefully made my way down the stairs, leaning heavily on the banister to avoid taking the fast way to the landing. A rash of cold weather had coupled with a recent injury to leave me moving slowly, and I would be of no use for an even longer stretch of time if I fell down the stairs in the middle of the night.

Limping slowly toward the sitting room, I tried to use his movements to deduce what he was doing up, with limited success. The footsteps were random, so he wasn’t pacing in thought as he frequently did, and I could think of no reason for him to be up in the middle of the night unless Lestrade had come by with a new detail—doubtful this long before sunrise. He had four cases going as of last night, but none of them were particularly challenging, and he had even admitted his fatigue as I climbed the stairs to bed.

The rustling of papers carried through the open doorway as I reached the landing.

“Holmes?” I said with a yawn. “What are you doing?”

There was no reply, and I walked through the door to see him wandering around the room, absently flipping through papers, moving stuff on his desk, and opening and closing drawers.

“Holmes?” I stopped near the door, watching him wander, and he made a sound of acknowledgement. “What are you doing?”

He moved away from his desk to examine the clutter on the mantle. “Where did it go? I left it right here!”

“Where did what go?”

He ignored me, beginning to look around his chemistry set.

“Holmes, what are you looking for?”

“My goldfish.”

I blinked, staring at him. His _goldfish?_ Was he sick?

“Holmes, are you feeling alright?”

“Don’t be ridiculous, Watson.” He flicked a hand at me, now looking through his bookshelf. “I’m perfectly fine. I need to find my goldfish before the contest tomorrow.”

I frowned, watching him open one of his indices and turn the pages. Something about his speech was off—aside from his nonsensical words—but it took me a moment to identify it.

His speech patterns were much more relaxed than usual. That more than anything told me what might be happening.

“Cor, Mr. ‘Olmes,” I did my best to imitate a Cockney accent, testing him. His reaction would tell me if I was correct. “You mean to say you ‘ave a fish in yer bookshelf?”

I had never been good at imitating Cockney, but it must have been close enough. He flicked a hand at me again. “Of course, not, Charlie. Its tank is there by the window.”

He gestured to the chemistry table, and amusement mixed with relief. Holmes was not sick; he was sleepwalking. I had never known him to do so before, but the stress of his recent case load had finally caught up to him.

“Holmes, you need to go back to bed.” I walked slowly across the room, trying not to wake him as I gently took the book and replaced it on the shelf.

“But…the key. I need to find my key.”

“Your key is safe,” I replied, going along with his dream as I pulled him to his feet. “You gave it to me, and I’ll give it back to you tomorrow.”

He followed me toward the bedroom, thinking about that. “You need to throw it back in the pond,” he said as we reached his room.

“Throw what back in the pond?”

“The goldfish. It can’t win the race in your pocket!”

I fought to hide my amusement. Apparently, the logic of his waking hours did not reach his dreams.

“Do not worry about it, Holmes. You will understand where I put it in the morning.”

He frowned but climbed back into bed, quickly falling back into a normal sleep, and I stayed with him only long enough to be sure he was done wandering before seeking my own bed. I doubted he would believe me when I told him about this in the morning.

* * *

I was still smirking when I joined him at the breakfast table, and he raised an eyebrow at me over a piece of buttered toast.

I said nothing as I filled my plate, and he lowered the toast to stare at me.

“What?” I finally asked him.

“Why are you smirking?” His eyes flicked to the mirror behind me, then back to catch my gaze.

He had just checked his hair color, and I smothered a chuckle that his first thought had been a prank.

“No reason,” I answered, buttering my own piece of toast.

He stared at me, not believing such an obvious lie.

“What did you do?”

“Absolutely nothing,” I answered truthfully.

He stared a moment longer before leaning back in his chair, ignoring the toast he set on his plate.

“Then what happened?”

My smirk widened. “You don’t remember?”

Wariness appeared in his gaze. “No. Why are you smirking?”

“You were sleepwalking last night—and sleep talking.” I paused, taking a bite. “How long has it been since you raced goldfish?”

“Goldfish?” He frowned at me. “Why would I race goldfish? _How_ would I race a goldfish?”

I chuckled. “I have no idea, but you were very worried about finding your goldfish in the bookshelf before the race started, and whether I would throw your key back in the pond. I imagine it came from the koi farm you told me about the other day.”

He continued frowning at me. “Don’t worry about it,” I said when he made no reply, still smirking. “Just slow down a little. You have been running yourself so hard these last few weeks, it is no wonder you started wandering.”

His frown cleared a moment later as he twitched a grin at me. “You are getting better at that.”

I stared at him, trying to figure out what he was thinking, and he returned his attention to his food as I realized he thought I was trying to fool him. “I am not joking, Holmes. You were sleepwalking last night, and you need to slow down a little.”

A knock sounded on the door on the heels of my words, and Holmes waved me off as he bolted to answer it. He left a moment later, and I turned back to my meal with a sigh. He had been pushing himself tirelessly for nearly two months, and the last week had been more frustrating than anything else. I could not join him on the cases until I healed a bit more, and I had expected something to give. I hoped he would slow down before this became a problem.

I did not bring it up again when he returned that night, too interested in the details of his case to argue with him over whether my warning was an elaborate prank, but I did note the time he went to bed. It was rare for someone to wander two nights in a row, but I would sleep lightly for a few days, just in case.

I was right to do so. Footsteps in the sitting room woke me again sometime after midnight, and I made my way downstairs as quickly as I could.

“Holmes?”

He knelt in front of his bookshelf, apparently browsing titles, but a distinct blankness in his gaze when he glanced up confirmed that he was sleepwalking again.

“Ah, there you are, Watson.” He pulled a book off the shelf and brought it to me. “Would you take this to the luthier down the street? He said he would replace the broken C string, and I expect Lestrade here any minute.”

“That is a dictionary, Holmes, and the luthier is closed. Go back to bed.”

The incongruity of my words made him pause just as they nearly made me laugh aloud, and I gently nudged him back into his room. He made no protest, and amusement battled concern as I replaced the book on the shelf and returned to my room. One night, I could see, but two in a row was worrisome.


	2. Chapter 2

“Did the goldfish reappear last night?” he asked me the next morning as he joined me at the table.

I smirked. “Why? Was your bed wet this morning?” He scowled at me, and I chuckled. “No, last night you tried to get me to take your dictionary to the luthier.”

He stared at me, obviously fighting to cover a smirk.

“I’m not joking, Holmes. You claimed your dictionary needed a new C string, and you wanted me to take it to the luthier for you.”

He refrained from rolling his eyes at me, but he made no comment, focusing on his food. Any further attempts at conversation resulted in grunts or monosyllables, and I left him to his thoughts as I planned what I needed to do about this.

I had not expected him to believe me the first time, but his continued disbelief could become a problem. One incident was likely just lack of sleep. Two nights in a row meant I would need to start taking precautions, and doing anything without his knowledge was difficult. Wandering around the sitting room was more amusing than dangerous, but our rooms would essentially need to be childproofed. The weapons and some of his relics would need to be put away for a while, and I would need to make sure he did not leave the flat in the middle of the night. Anything was possible while sleepwalking, and if he decided he needed to leave, he would wake up far from home at best. At worst, he would get himself into a dangerous situation.

He left shortly after breakfast, dressed as an ostler, and I used the day to set a couple of warnings around the flat. The doors all had a lock, and I pocketed the key from the mantle before I took our revolvers, my medical bag, and the knife I kept in my desk drawer and stowed them in my room. The door from his bedroom to the sitting room received a quiet bell, and I started searching for his more dangerous case relics to lock in my desk drawer. He had boasted many times how easy my desk’s lock was to pick, but my primary focus was getting the items where he would not automatically find them. Sleepwalking negated deep thinking and most of his deducing ability, and putting the items where he would not expect them to be should be enough of a deterrent—at least until he deduced their locations while awake.

My self-appointed task took all day due to my current pace and his tendency to spread his belongings about the room, and supper loomed when Mrs. Hudson found me carefully sorting through the clutter around his desk, looking for the penknife I knew he kept within reach of his chair.

“Are you still in the middle of that prank war, Doctor?” she asked, laying out the supper dishes.

I hadn’t heard her enter the room, and I jumped at her voice, knocking my head on the desk above me.

“No, Mrs. Hudson,” I replied, rubbing my head as I finally spotted the penknife on the floor nearly behind the desk. “That finished a couple of weeks ago.” I added the penknife to the pile of dangerous objects I was accumulating in my chair and debated removing the jack knife from the mantle, ignoring the scowl she aimed at me for using her title.

“Then what are you doing?”

He was unlikely to grab the jack knife to use as a weapon, I decided, and he would notice its absence more quickly than I wanted.

“I am Holmes-proofing the sitting room,” I replied with a smirk, wrapping the pile in the cloth I had laid on my chair earlier and locking the entire thing in my desk. Confusion crossed her face, and I chuckled. “He has started sleepwalking, and he did not believe me when I told him this morning. Until he slows down enough to stop wandering in his sleep, I am making sure he cannot easily reach anything dangerous.”

She frowned. “I thought only children did that.”

I shook my head, moving his chemistry supplies around and putting away the more dangerous reactants. “Adults do it sometimes, as well, though it is rare. It is usually a result of high stress and a lack of sleep.”

“He took on too many cases and refused to let you help, didn’t he?”

I chuckled again. “Of course, he did, but there is very little I can do with his current ones, anyway. His most pressing case is the one at the stable. My disguises are much better than they used to be, but I still have no interest in impersonating a stable hand even to gather information, and he knows it. I did enough of that as a child.”

She laughed at my tone, remembering my stories of caring for my father’s horses when I was young. My least-favorite chore growing up, I had passed the task to someone else as soon as I could. Holmes knew better than to ask me to join him in the stables unless absolutely necessary.

“My sister would do the craziest things in her sleep,” she remembered, readying the tray to take back downstairs.

“Holmes is no different,” I said with a smirk as I finished at the chemistry table and crossed the room. “Last night, he tried to get me to take his dictionary to the luthier, claiming it had a broken C string.”

She looked up from the tray in her hand, and a laugh escaped when she saw I was telling the truth. “He thought a dictionary was his violin?”

I shook my head. “Violins do not have a C string. He thought a dictionary was my viola, and he wanted a luthier to fix it.” That dream was rooted in truth, at least, as the C string on my viola had broken last week. I had fixed it myself with one of the extra strings I kept in my room. “The night before was stranger,” I continued as she grinned. “He was frantically searching the sitting room for his goldfish, claiming he would need it to race in a contest the next morning.”

She stared at me in surprise for a moment before laughing hard. “Weren’t you discussing a fish farm a few days ago?” she finally asked, her words sounding slightly strangled.

I nodded. “Koi became key, and fish became goldfish. He had me worried for a minute until I realized he was sleepwalking.”

Footsteps sounded on the stairs, cutting off whatever she would have replied, and she quickly wiped her eyes and picked up the tray. “Let me know if there is any way I can help,” she said on her way out the door, still chuckling at the idea of racing a fish.

“Of course.”

I started eating, listening to Holmes move around in his room as Mrs. Hudson went back downstairs, and he joined me in the sitting room a few minutes later, thankfully coming through the landing instead of the door to which I had attached a bell.

He moved around the room for a few minutes, putting a couple of things away before joining me at the table and filling a plate. I tried to start a conversation, asking about his day, but gave up soon enough. He needed more information before he could tie up his most pressing case, but he had no way of obtaining that information except by eavesdropping in the stables. Nearly a week of working with the horses with nothing to show for it had left him more likely to grumble than speak, and I knew better than to try to get him talking when he was in such a mood. I settled on the settee with a book when he took to pacing in front of the fireplace after supper, and the evening passed slowly.

“Go to bed, Holmes,” I finally voiced a few hours after sunset when he yawned for the third time in as many minutes.

He waved me off, continuing his pacing even as another yawn fought its way free.

“Pacing the night away will do nothing for tomorrow, Holmes. Go to bed. Maybe Lestrade will have a lead for you in the morning.”

He scowled at the thought of relying on Lestrade to help but turned to his room as another yawn split his face. Lack of sleep might have caused the sleepwalking, but the sleepwalking caused a lack of restful sleep. It would only compound itself if he refused to slow down.

I waited until he settled into bed before quietly putting my book away. Checking that he was asleep, I locked the doors to the landing before building up the fire and turning down the gas. Settling on the settee with the rug Mrs. Hudson always left draped over the back, I slipped into a light doze, ready to wake should he wander again tonight.

* * *

Rattling jolted me awake, and nearly silent footsteps moved away from Holmes’ bedroom door. I remained still, waiting to see if the locked door would send him back to bed.

It did not, and the bell chimed a minute later as he wandered into the sitting room. I said nothing at first, following his steps as he walked slowly toward his desk, but sat up when he knelt and opened one of the drawers.

“What are you doing, Holmes?” I asked quietly.

He jumped, and I cursed myself, thinking for a moment that I had woken him, but the blankness in his gaze when he looked up said otherwise.

“Fall asleep reading again?” he said with a smirk. I made no reply, and he turned back to rooting through his desk.

I stood when he did, watching as he continued searching around the room, and I tried again a minute later.

“What are you doing?”

“Following the horse.”

I smothered a chuckle. “Which horse?”

“The white one. Didn’t you see it?”

“I have yet to see a horse in our sitting room. Go back to bed, Holmes.”

He ignored me, his focus redirecting to the table near the window, and I hurriedly placed myself between him and the chemistry set.

“You are not doing an experiment at one in the morning,” I told him, gently directing him away from the table. He resisted, and I thought quickly, searching for something to catch his attention.

“The horse went back to your room.”

He stopped fighting me. “Which horse?”

“The white one you were following a minute ago. Remember?”

“Of course,” he replied, his voice growing fainter.

“Come. Back to bed.”

He followed me quietly, and I pulled the covers over him and returned to the sitting room, grateful the episode had been short. Much too tired to unlock the doors and climb the stairs to my own room, I sank back down onto the settee, asleep in moments.

“Why are you sleeping on the settee?”

I opened my eyes to see him standing over me, the frown on his face barely visible in the early morning light.

“Holmes?” I asked groggily, trying to decide if he was sleepwalking again. I had apparently slept through the bell on his door chiming.

Sitting up, I turned up the gas and studied him as he scowled at me. He stood near my feet, his keen gaze scanning me and the settee as the light grew.

“Why are you sleeping on the settee?” he asked again, reaching to check me for a fever.

I batted his hand away. “I’m fine, Holmes. Why are you up so early?”

His frown deepened. “I am always up by seven. Answer my question.”

“Because you have been sleepwalking,” I told him, glancing at the clock before slowly pulling myself to my feet. I had slept later than I had intended. The mantle clock read a quarter past seven, and Mrs. Hudson would be bringing up breakfast soon. “I told you that yesterday.”

He continued frowning, watching as I slowly unlocked the doors to the landing and pocketed the key.

“I grant you had me fooled for a while the first day, but not for more than a few minutes,” he told me as I put the pillows on the settee back in order.

“This is not a prank, Holmes,” I answered with a sigh, turning toward the stairs to freshen up in my room. “When have I ever been able to lie to you? You wandered through the sitting room shortly after one, claiming you were following a white horse and trying to start an experiment.”

He stilled at my words, and I glanced back at him.

“A _white_ horse?” he asked, and I nodded. Understanding flit across his face, and he bolted into his bedroom.

“Holmes?”

“Milvis is using the white stallion!”

He came out barely a moment later and hurried down the stairs, calling something about meeting Lestrade at the Yard, and I shook my head tiredly. _He_ at least seemed to have gotten a decent night’s rest, but getting up to lead him back to bed every night was beginning to affect me. With any luck, he would solve his most pressing case today and would not wander again tonight. In the meantime, lying back down on the settee for a while after breakfast sounded like a perfect idea.

* * *

Holmes returned shortly before supper, the slamming of the door telling the entire flat that he had solved the case, and I glanced up from my book as he strode into the room.

“I am guessing the white horse was the key?” I said, covering my smirk with the book in my hand.

“Milvis trained his stallion to transfer the fish from one pond to another,” he answered, the double meaning behind my words passing unheeded as he headed towards his room. “He taught the horse to pick them up by the tail and carry them from Culbert’s pond to his. Culbert did not notice until the horse started doing it on its own.”

I stared at him, my book falling to rest on my lap as understanding washed over me. “This is a koi farm just outside the city,” I guessed. “Milvis taught the horse to do it quickly, probably to avoid harming the fish, and the horse would _race_ across the pasture with a koi in its mouth.”

He continued into his bedroom for only a couple of steps before my words registered, and he froze and turned to stare at me. “I never told you the details of this case,” he noted after a moment. “How did you know that?”

“I told you that already.” Confusion appeared in his gaze, and I elaborated, “You told me while sleepwalking. The first night, you were searching for a goldfish you intended to race, and you were worried about a key. Last night, you claimed you were following a white horse.”

Surprise crossed his face, and he ducked into his room to hide it. He truly thought I had been trying to prank him.

“Mycroft told me that he caught me wandering in my sleep shortly after I moved in with him,” he said when he came back out to the sitting room in his dressing gown, “but it was only once or twice. I have not done it since.”

After he had moved in with _Mycroft?_ I considered asking but set it aside, relegating _that_ conversation to another day and focusing on the more important topic.

“You have sleepwalked every night for the last three nights,” I repeated, closing my book and moving to sit in the other armchair.

He leaned back in his chair. “Is this why your medical bag is not in its place?”

“Among other things,” I agreed, then paused. “So put the bell back on your door,” I added, realizing that I had not heard him open his bedroom door when he came back to the sitting room.

He chuckled. “Later. Why did you put a bell on my door?”

“For the same reason I slept in the sitting room and locked the exits when I went to bed last night: to make sure you did not injure yourself in your sleep.” I paused again, weighing my words. “You need to slow down. Sleepwalking is usually caused by a lack of rest, but it can be a precursor to a larger problem. We can take a few days and get out of London. A change of scenery and pace should stop the sleepwalking soon enough.”

He waved off my suggestion. “No one has proven sleepwalking to be connected to anything else,” he disputed, “and I am not leaving in the middle of a case.”

I shook my head, frowning. I had known he would not want to leave, but I was in earnest when I said this could become a problem. “I suppose you will find out eventually,” I finally told him, “but I would rather you not have to. At least let me help. There must be something I can do to aid in your cases.”

“Our cases,” he scowled, reflexively glancing at my still-healing injury, “and not yet. I closed one of them today, and the others do not yet have a time frame on them. I will be fine.”

I frowned at him but refused to argue. There were many things the sleepwalking could signify, and a few others it could cause, but if he would not listen to me, I would simply have to guard him.

Mrs. Hudson walked in with the supper tray, and conversation turned to other things as we ate. He refused to answer when I tried to bring it up again later, but he did let me replace the bell on his door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For anyone interested, some friends of mine who used to own horses confirmed both that horses can be trained to fetch and that they will catch (and eat) goldfish


	3. Chapter 3

I sat up on the settee, stifling a groan when the bell woke me from a deep sleep. Holmes wandered into the room, aimlessly drifting between his desk and the bookshelf and destroying my faint hopes that solving the case would stop his nightly sleepwalking.

“Go back to bed, Holmes,” I said quietly, slowly getting up to lead him back to his room. He ignored me. “Holmes? What are you doing?”

“Waiting.”

“Waiting for what?”

He did not answer, beginning to rifle through his desk.

“Come with me, Holmes. You need to go back to bed.”

I slowly approached him, intending to guide him back to his room, but he moved away from me, now fingering the titles in his bookcase.

“What are you looking for?”

“Not looking. Found.” He drifted down the shelf, removing books seemingly at random and laying them flat in front of the other books.

“Then what did you find?”

“Rabbits.”

I nearly laughed, reaching out to guide him back to his room. He avoided my hand, and I tried to keep his attention.

“Why were you searching for rabbits?”

“Charles let the rabbits escape. Had to help him find them. Drivel.”

I _did_ laugh at that, remembering a recent conversation about how best to fix the plot while editing sensitive information from one of our cases. In a fit of frustrated metaphor, I had compared ideas to rabbits, complaining that they always hopped away when I needed them most. He had spent the afternoon alternating between driving me mad with wordplays and positing ideas for how I could fix the story—not that he would ever admit that he had _helped_ me write up a case. It probably had something to do with how much alcohol he had consumed that night, because by the time I went to bed, any mention of rabbits nearly made him laugh aloud.

“If you found them already, then what do you want now?” There was no answer. “Come on, Holmes. Go back to bed.”

My plea was more than just getting him back to bed; I dearly wanted to go back to sleep myself and could not until he did, but he ignored me, moving down the shelf. I was about to try again when the mantle clock chimed the hour.

His gaze shot up from the bookshelf to land on the clock, and he was on his feet in a moment, rushing for the door.

I hurried after him, coming up behind him as he struggled with the locked door. “Holmes, stop. You don’t need to go anywhere right now.”

I carefully wedged myself between him and the door, and he scowled at me. “Get out of the way! He is going to escape. I have to catch him!”

“He did not escape,” I said calmly. “You caught him already, and you don’t need to leave.” He stared at me, surprised. “Come. Back to bed.”

He frowned but stopped trying to leave the sitting room, letting me guide him back toward the bedroom. Not wanting to wake him—that had its own possible repercussions—I stayed a foot or so away, and for a minute I thought he was going to follow me back to his bed like he had every other night.

Then his expression changed.

“Holmes?”

He shoved me out of the way and lunged across the room again, furiously trying to open the locked door. His frantic movements prevented me from getting in his way, and I tried to catch his attention.

“Holmes, calm down.”

“Locked,” he muttered. “Why is it locked? Where is the key? The key!” His gaze landed on me. “You have the key! Think you could lock me in my own sitting room? Give me the key!” He lunged at me.

“I don’t have the key, Holmes,” I lied, blocking his attempts to pickpocket me. “Where are you trying to go?”

“He is expecting me. Let me out before he comes looking, and maybe you can avoid jail time!”

“I am not kidnapping you, Holmes,” I told him as his obvious attempts to grab the key from my pocket grew more frantic. I stepped aside, forcing him to follow me, and managed to get between him and the door. “Stay here. We can go in the morning.”

“It _is_ morning, imbecile,” he snarled, trying to forcibly shove me away from the locked door. I did not dare try to wake him, but it amazed me that he had not yet woken himself, the way he was carrying on.

Footsteps sounded outside, and my eyes widened. “Go back downstairs, Mrs. Hudson!” I called through the door, fighting to keep Holmes’ hand out of my pocket.

“Get out of the way!”

Even asleep, he was the better fighter, and he overpowered me, using the small distraction of calling out to Mrs. Hudson to get past my guard. Grabbing my bad shoulder with one hand and the key from my pocket with the other, he nearly threw me away from the door, and I gasped, pain lancing through the scar as my bad leg buckled beneath me at the force of his shove. The cry came without thought.

“Holmes!”

I bounced off a small table to land with a grunt to the side of the door, and Holmes froze, staring blankly around the room for a long moment before focusing on where I slowly pulled myself upright. He frowned, stepping towards me, and I hurriedly moved away from him, shielding my head with one arm as I awkwardly pushed myself along the floor to keep him from attacking while I was down. Confusion washed his expression, and he stopped, then took a hesitant step back. He continued frowning at me, confusion predominant in his gaze, and I used the table to pull myself to my feet as I watched him warily. He had the key now, and there was no way I would be able to prevent him from leaving. All I would be able to do was follow. The pain shooting through old and new injuries said I would need to find my cane before he left if I wanted to have any hope of keeping up with him.

Footsteps sounded on the landing again, and Mrs. Hudson tried the door, then knocked when she found it locked. “Is everything alright, Doctor?”

“We’re alright, Mrs. Hudson,” I called back, still watching for Holmes to bolt for the door. “Go back downstairs.”

Her footsteps faded from hearing, and I tensed, ready to tackle him if he intended to rush the door before she made it back to her rooms. He did not move, still staring at me, and I slowly pushed myself off the table when I knew she was out of range, keeping an eye on him as I started making use of the furniture to quickly limp toward the cane I had left by the settee.

“Here.” Holmes’ quiet voice stopped my faltering walk across the room, and I glanced over as he slowly offered me his walking stick, the sharpness now in his gaze confirming he was awake. “I did that,” he said quietly.

It was more a question than a statement, and I nodded, taking the stick and breathing a sigh of relief that I would not have to chase him down the street. “You were trying to leave, and I stopped you.”

He studied me, no doubt noticing the awkward way I held my left shoulder as well as how my right foot kept twitching from the spasm shooting down my leg. Something trickled down my thigh, and I tried to redirect his focus. “Go back to bed, Holmes.”

He ignored my words as his gaze focused on my leg. “You are bleeding.”

I glanced down, muttering a choice word when my trouser leg stuck to the blood coming from the half-healed scar. “Don’t worry about it,” I told him, turning up the gas to supplement the firelight. I limped heavily toward my desk, aiming for the bandages I remembered leaving there the last time I had restocked my bag, but he stopped me again, this time steering me toward the settee.

“I can get it,” he said when I protested. “Sit down and roll up your pant leg. The scar reopened, did it not?”

I nodded. The stitches had come out less than a week ago, and I had fallen against the table hard enough to split the scar tissue in one small area.

Not bothering to ask me for my desk key, he picked the lock and returned with a handful of bandages as I fastened my pant leg above the injury.

“It is not that bad,” I told him when I saw how many he had grabbed.

He said nothing, carefully cleaning and bandaging the small part of the scar that had reopened, and I finally noticed the guilt in his eyes.

“Don’t worry about it,” I repeated. “I should have been more aware of what was nearby when I blocked you from reaching the door.” He avoided my gaze, putting away the extra bandages and throwing the bloodied cloths into the fireplace, and I leaned back on the settee as I continued. “Go back to bed, Holmes, and unlock the doors if you want. You never wander more than once in the night.”

He still made no response as he moved about the room, and I frowned. “What is it? Are you injured?” I did not think I had hit him, but there was a chance something had happened as I fell…

He shook his head quickly, cutting off that train of thought, and I studied him. “Then why are you not going back to bed?”

“The sun will be up soon enough,” he noted with a glance at the mantle clock.

I frowned. What did that have to do with it?

“Go back to bed for a few hours, Holmes. I will be fine out here, and you need the sleep. You will never finish your cases if you are too tired to think.”

He shook his head, moving around the room for a few minutes longer before turning down the gas, and the firelight played across his face as he finally settled in his chair.

“Holmes?”

“Go to sleep, Watson. We have a train to catch in the morning.”

I stared in surprise for only a moment before hiding a grin as I settled into the cushions, understanding that he meant to hand the cases off to Lestrade as soon as the sun was up. A change of pace and scenery would halt his nightly wanderings soon enough, and I always enjoyed a few days in the country.

“Nightly wanderings” became “night wander,” then “nightwalker” in my tired thoughts, and I chuckled when a recent novel and a piece of Hindu mythology came to mind.

“What is it?”

I ignored him, too close to sleep to try to reply, but the words played in my mind’s eye.

Holmes would despise the idea that he had something in common with Stoker’s character.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed! Feedback is always greatly appreciated :)
> 
> 10/17 So, just FYI, I live unfortunately close to one of the nastier wildfires in the western US. I just wanted to give a heads up that I may go dark for a while if I have to evacuate.


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